Down to Pondicherry

If you will kindly scroll back down to the previous post, I was able to finish adding pictures and a few new things that originally crashed...

Also, if you can stand to go here and read my entire January 2006 archive, you'll see tons of pictures and sites from around Pondicherry from my first trip - I was pretty thorough with my theme blogs of the past.

Then, if you want more humorous first impressions, if you read the "India, the Prequel," parts one through five that you can click on from the sidebar - you'll have a really good picture of what it's like and I can go on to find new and different things to talk about. Oh pleeeeeeeze? The prequel entries were originally a series of emails I sent out before the blog started because connectivity in the hotel was so bad. The Promenade was one of the first hotels in Pondi to have internet access when we stayed here two years ago, but it was pretty hit or miss at that point.

So now to current events! We left Chennai on Friday to drive down to Pondicherry (now called Puducherry - but only by government officials and not by anyone that lives there). We took the Coast Road down and stopped in Mahabalapuram along the way. The hoosband's client sends car and driver (in a nice SUV with maximum A/C) for people coming down to work. They tell the driver to take the first-timers down the inland highway, NOT the coast road - so they won't be frightened too early in their travels. The inland road has plainly marked lanes and a nice big divider down the middle that traffic can't cross over. The Coast Road is a smaller road - one lane each way - and goes through the countryside and many small villages and is much more pleasant. Just because you see the odd bus or three bearing down on you IN YOUR LANE is no reason to get upset. And of course, just when you've dodged that cute goat that couldn't decide which way to go, out steps a huge cow that is convinced the grass is definitely greener on the OTHER side. Lots of near misses because no one is driving slow - but somehow they ARE all misses and everyone keeps going. As with all traffic in India, the smaller always has to give way to the bigger and everyone is passing everyone all the time (in the national language of HORN) - so you're always facing vehicles coming at you in "their" lane AND your lane at the same time. Everyone assumes they'll be able to get out of the way at the last minute and it does seem to work out. Can't let it get to you - there's too much to see.

This is the afternoon nosh.... They're eating rice and vegetables left on banana leaves inside the cement thingummy. I think I'm starting to get that loose skin around the neck thing...

Most of the pictures embigafy quite well if you click on them - unlike the original entries. Stold that word from Melinda and that link is to her blog.

Being a West Coaster most of my life it's always hard to remember that North is left when I look at the ocean. This coast faces the Bay of Bengal. The city of Pondicherry itself was not hard hit by the big Tsunami 2+ years ago but the outlying villages were. Most of them seem to be resettled now, but we saw a few of the temporary village setups that had become neatened up and permanent. Everything is very green since it's near the end of monsoon. We saw lovely rice paddies everywhere in bright emerald and all divided into everyone's separate patch -some with water buffalo grazing in them. All the villages have herds of goats finding their own grazing during the day - little pennant-flag tails waving as they walk. These are all meat goats - nary a fiber animal in sight. In South India what is called mutton on the menu is actually adult goat, and "lamb" is kid. Can't see any sheep surviving in the South - here they think it's getting cold in the high 70's/low 80's with 89% humidity (winter you know)! It would be massive sheep heatstroke unless they let them play all day in the new waterslide park and I just don't think the sheep could afford it do you?

We stopped in Mahabalapuram (now known as Mammalapuram - tiring, isn't it?) to see one of our favorite temple carvings. It's called Arjuna's Penance. Look at the beauty of the lines in the elephant carvings. It's so trite to say they're just timeless, but they're SO timeless!

Mamallapuram is also home to lots of temples, the most famous of which is called the Shore Temple.

I still have tons of pictures of these places from last time, and did blog entries on them, but Blogger seems to have evacuated some of my posts between the beginning of the blog and now. Quite frustrating as I was looking forward to trying to see things from a new approach rather than redoing, so I'm cheating with links where I can.

There are so many poor villages in the countryside - then there'll be a side road to a huge swank resort facing the ocean or a bay. Aside from the somewhat cruel contrasts, this is a lucky thing because - if you're a woman, you have to plan all your outings around potential bathrooms. The resorts are used to white visitors running in the front door to use the WC. I have found various bacon-saving tricks to finding places to go and what to do when you get there, but lest they offend the sensitive, email me for them if you want to know.

This is one of the resorts These "cabins" are right on the beach.

And there's Mr. Chirpchatty surveying the scene in tie-dye, which is the only kind of shirt he wears here. Welllll, almost. He will put on a polo shirt and Dockers for the really big meetings, but under protest. The women of India all look wonderful in every conceivable color combination - and no colors are spurned. The men? Well, the men are pretty much drab city. Their shirts may have stripes, checks or plaid but they are all in the most make-me-invisible colors possible.

We are now at the Promenade Hotel where we usually stay here in Pondi. It's across the street from the sea wall and gets what breezes there are - no small thing to the heat-prostrated. Two blocks inland, the breezes die, and I melt down. The hotel is named after the beach walk called the Promenade along the sea wall. It seems the entire town loves to walk along here at night and who could blame them? The police block off all of the traffic from the road in front of the hotel every evening for 3-4 hours so everyone can walk at will, and the crowds can spill over onto the road. There's a huge statue of Gandhi half-way along the road.

Ice cream vendors, drum sellers, candy sellers - they're all there - and everyone brings their children. I'd forgotten how noisy this location is. The one who makes the most noise is the one I call the clangydang man. He has a wheeled cart that he walks along with a stove in it and he will roast what ever kind of nuts or chaat (crunchy snacks) you want in a huge iron pan. The way he drums up business is to clang the long metal spoon he uses back and forth in the pan to let people know he's there. Over and over and over.... Thank goodness he usually quits at 10 pm as his route is basically outside our hotel room main window. Most of the townspeople come by scooter or motorbike to walk the Promenade - Dad in front, 2-3 kids in the middle and mom in the back riding side-saddle and hanging on to the underside of her seat. In the morning the big metal barriers are draaaaaggggged back across the road to let traffic through. Traffic is mostly autorickshaws. The drivers drive with one hand mostly up in position to squeeze the horn (we've talked about HORN right?). The horn is a BIG blue bulb that looks something like the end of a turkey baster from the 1950's. The most common horn sounds are angry duck and outraged seagull. Truly - just like that! The crows also like to hang out in droves at the front of the hotel in the morning. They convene their morning cawcus around 5 a.m. and go 'til 7:00 a.m. or so until it's time for a tea break. South Indian crows have a more raspy caw than their American relations. They also have a grey head instead of being all black - hard to see in the picture below. They're terribly smart too, the cheeky buggers - don't like their pictures taken. They'll throw in a taunting for free.

Most gravel and dirt moving goes on after 10 p.m. at night - strangely a lot of it outside the hotel. Working in the evening has got to be much more pleasant than during the day - heat-wise. Plus it doesn't hold up any traffic. Just keeps us up! A truck will roll up - say around 11:30 p.m.......offload a ton of gravel......and lots of guys. Then it's hours of caSHOOONK! (metal shovel bites into gravel), shiiirrrrrACK! (metal shovel dumps scritchy gravel into metal pans that look just like goldmining pans), repeat 'til pan is full. Place pan on head, walk walk walk, carry carry carry, and splatch! (gravel lands in new spot not reachable directly by truck.) Repeat until done or about 3 a.m. Tonight it's dirt movers leveling a new sand/dirt surface out on the area right above the sea wall. Move move move, snargle, snorkle, snargle, dig for truffle sounds, heavy snoring backing-up sounds, aaaaaand repeat 'til done! Can't wait for the rain to start up so they can't work for a couple nights! All grousing aside, it's one of the nices (and did I mention coolest?) places to stay in town. It's lovely to walk along the Promenade at night when the sea breezes are balmy and everyone is enjoying themselves.

I'll leave you with a picture of a grandmother and her shy grandaughter who were nice enough to let me snap them outside the park. If you embigafy this one you'll notice the rabbit holding the garbage can in the upper left behind the fence. We've never figured out why rabbits, but in the park and at the beach end of town, all the trash cans are held by rabbits.